Need music recommendations

[KeithTalent]

How about something like µ-Ziq or Kruder & Dorfmeister. Those are a couple of my favourites, though they do have up-tempo stuff as well.

KT

 

[DaveJ]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
Looking at Wikipedia I think the genre I'm looking for is either downtempo or ambient. Any recommendations for these?

Might want to stream Groove Salad -- it's a shoutcast stream. A lot of artists that fit that mold get play on there.

And Pandora is good.

QFT. SomaFM rocks, I've got Space Station Soma on all day at work, it makes for great background noise.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: DaveJ

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
Looking at Wikipedia I think the genre I'm looking for is either downtempo or ambient. Any recommendations for these?

Might want to stream Groove Salad -- it's a shoutcast stream. A lot of artists that fit that mold get play on there.

And Pandora is good.

QFT. SomaFM rocks, I've got Space Station Soma on all day at work, it makes for great background noise.

Totally.

I also like Limbik Frequencies, but that might get a bit to glitchy and "weird" for the OP. I have found lots of artists through shoutcast.

 

[yakko]

I like Moby.

I would recommend the following in no particular order. Some of these do not fit neatly into downtempo or ambient but I think they should help you expand your selection.

Smoke City
Baby Fox
Red Snapper
Spicelab
Squarepusher
Portishead
Emelie Simon
Goldfrapp
Archive
Baxter
D.J. Krush
Spacetime Continuum
9 Lazy 9
Morcheeba
Thievery Corporation
Aphex Twin
Hooverphonic
Olive
Strange Cargo
Nightmares On Wax
Air
Micatone
The Orb - Mainly stuff before Pomme Fritz
Apollo Four Forty
B12
Lamb
Single Cell Orchestra
Royksopp
Ben Neill
D.J. Shadow
Massive Attack
Drum Club
FC Kahuna

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: DaveJ

QFT. SomaFM rocks, I've got Space Station Soma on all day at work, it makes for great background noise.

I really like SomaFM. I normally listen to Space Station Soma, Sonic Universe, and I really like the new electro-pop channel, Pop-Tron. While listening to Pop-Tron I heard the song used in the Geico commercials which I really like. Then I did a Google search for the song and lyrics and found their animated music video here (it's neat, check it out):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o

 

[Rill22]

I'm a big fan of instrumental bands like Boards of Canada and Explosions in the Sky, but you could also give any of the Cafe del Mar series a try. Not really my style so much, but a lot of people like them for relaxing kind of chillout music.

 

[BUTCH1]

Sparks...my other voice..

 

[Kadarin]

I'm going to recommend some stuff I've run across which is probably not going to be mentioned by most, but is really good electronic chill, IMO...

Look in iTunes for "Electric Calm". Also, check some of these out:

Monica Ramos - The "Moai" album, particularly: Silencio Profundo (Deep Silence), and Ocean. For a bit more beat, check out Ocean (Infectious Waves Mix).
Ape on the Roof - Isn't My Day
Bassic - Tranquility Bass
D:Fuse & Hiratzka - I See Light (feat. Govinda), Breathe In (album version)
Amethystium - pretty much anything by them, but their best song IMO is Autumn Interlude.
Ultimax - Noir
Aural Float - Still Here (instrumental)
Techno Squirrels - Love Comes First
Jens Buchert - In the Mirror
Grey Area - Sadness Dub
Carmen Rizzo - Ecouter (featuring Jem)

Other chill artists:

Enigma - the entire A Posteriori album
Achillea
Blue Stone
Balligomingo
Mystical Sun
Guardner


Look for iTunes or other music recommendation services to give you suggestions based on those. You might also try some mellow dub music, like:

Phase Selector Sound - Dubstep
Thievery Corporation - Revolution Dub
Dub Resistance - Take a Rock
Dubblestandart - Evil Empire (Sounds from the Ground Remix)

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: nkgreen
infected mushroom

FTW!!

 

[SP33Demon]

Anything and everything by Thievery Corporation.

 

[alevasseur14]

Also check out Mocean Worker, Massive Attack, Dzihan and Kamien, and maybe even Ratatat.

Those are my top four bands I listen to when I'm writing a big paper and need something to break up the background noise without requiring too much concentration to get into.

You might recognize Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' from such popular prime time TV shows as 'HOUSE'...

 

[Redfraggle]

I like, ok love, Juno Reactor. Most of it will be too uptempo for what you want, but some -- like ice cube, solaris, conquistador, one of the nitrogen versions, and a few more I forget names of would be good.

Can you get last.fm on your iphone? Or at home and then buy music from itunes? Last.fm has a very good ambient station called "ambientnights" that I recently got hooked on. Since I'm usually doing something else, I don't know most of the songs or artists, but it fits what you say you want.

 

[alevasseur14]

I just checked out the Thievery Corporation on Pandora and it will certainly come in handy writing those papers this coming semester!

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: alevasseur14
I just checked out the Thievery Corporation on Pandora and it will certainly come in handy writing those papers this coming semester!

Nice, glad to hear. They recently sold out 4 nights straight here in DC area (they're from here) at 930 Club (past Spring). That is a pretty tough task to do.

 

[alevasseur14]

So has anybody listened to Dzihan and Kamien before? My buddy that turned me onto them described them as 'new jazz'. I really like those guys but haven't really been able to find anything quite like them.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
Looking at Wikipedia I think the genre I'm looking for is either downtempo or ambient. Any recommendations for these?

Your best bet for exploring downtempo/ambient electronic music is to follow labels rather than individual groups/artists, since most of the producers are rather obscure.

Elektrolux
Dakini Records
Apollo
Fax +49-69/450464 (This is the granddaddy of all electronic ambient labels.)
Ultimae Records
Silent
Hypnos
Chillcode
Instinct Ambient
Interchill Records
Edit: Oops, forgot Lotuspike

emusic.com has a phenomenal selection of electronic music, esp. downtempo/ambient electronic music. Much better than itunes imho (also cheaper).

Edit: nerp, yakko: nice lists!

BTW: You can download many nice ambient mixes from the discogs.com Ambient and Experimental group: http://www.discogs.com/group/114

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: alevasseur14
So has anybody listened to Dzihan and Kamien before? My buddy that turned me onto them described them as 'new jazz'. I really like those guys but haven't really been able to find anything quite like them.

9 Lazy 9 (Recommend "The Herb.")
Crazy Penis (Recommend "A Nice Hot Bath With.")
Nicola Conte (Recommend "Jet Sounds.")
Mark Farina (His "Mushroom Jazz" series of mixes is invariably excellent.)

As others have mentioned, Kruder & Dorfmeister & Thievery Corporation are staples in any 'new jazz' diet.

If anyone is up for some trading, my electronic music collection is cataloged here.

 

[alevasseur14]

I've listened to Kruder before and I dig them. I've been playing the Thievery Corporation station for about 2 hours now and don't really see it as new jazz. Maybe I'm wrong though - I am pretty much a noob to the genre!

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: alevasseur14
I've listened to Kruder before and I dig them. I've been playing the Thievery Corporation station for about 2 hours now and don't really see it as new jazz. Maybe I'm wrong though - I am pretty much a noob to the genre!

I've been listening to electronic music for 10+ years & have amassed thousands of albums & I've never really liked many of the genre labels. "New jazz" to me is just electronic music with jazz elements to it. So to me something like Galaxy 2 Galaxy's "Hitech Jazz" could be considered 'new jazz' but it's really more techno/house than jazz.

The worst label is IDM. WTF is 'intelligent dance music?' Some of the stuff people call IDM is the dumbest shit I've ever heard, and it's mostly just a wastebasket category people use for convenience. E.g. nerp provided a list of many of the heavyweights of downtempo/ambient, but I wouldn't consider many of those artists 'IDM' producers (e.g. Monolake is not IDM, it's just straight-up techno, ranging from ambient techno to more industrial techno.)

 

[skace]

I don't really know what you are looking for, so I'm throwing some stuff out there.

uZiq - Brace yourself Jason, Midwinter Log, Secret Stair pt1/pt2, Goodbye Goodbye, Scaling
Above&Beyond - Oceanlab Miracle, Needs to Feel, Remember September, In the Past, Tri-State
Aphex Twin - Flim, To Cure a Weakling Child, Avril 14th, Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow, Jynweythek, Kesson Dalef, Fingerbib, Girl/Boy Song, Goon Gumpas, Yellow Calx, Cliffs, Rhubarb
BT - Firewater, All That Makes Us Human, The AntiKythera Mechanism,
Dead Can Dance - De Profundis
Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Orange
Infected Mushroom - Disco Mushroom, Albibeno, Elation Station, Never Never Land
Praxis - The Interworld and the New Innocence
Tiesto - Into the Fire, A New Dawn
Melon - Misunderstanding
Orbital - Adnan's, Dwr Budr
Younger Brother - Happy Pills, Psychic Gibbon, Your Friends are Scary

Sigur Ros (?) - Fyrsta, Njosnavelin, Samskeyti, Vaka, Ny Batteri, Glossoli

I believe several of the Aphex Twin songs I mentioned are from the Ambient Works volumes. However, I do not listen to the entire Ambient Work volumes in general because too much of that is not my listening style. I would be curious if I pointed you in any interesting directions....

 

[Fingolfin269]

Did anyone mention BT? His latest, This Binary Universe, is a very interesting body of work.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Did anyone mention BT? His latest, This Binary Universe, is a very interesting body of work.

All That Makes Us Human, The AntiKythera Mechanism

IIRC, are both from Binary Universe! So I back up that statement.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Did anyone mention BT? His latest, This Binary Universe, is a very interesting body of work.

All That Makes Us Human, The AntiKythera Mechanism

IIRC, are both from Binary Universe! So I back up that statement.

LOL the post just before mine good timing. Firewater... is that one from his original? Has somewhat of a 'tribal' type of sound going on if I remember correctly. It's been so long since I've listened to any of the pre-TBU stuff.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
LOL the post just before mine good timing. Firewater... is that one from his original? Has somewhat of a 'tribal' type of sound going on if I remember correctly. It's been so long since I've listened to any of the pre-TBU stuff.

From ESCM (which I think is the original?). Kind of tribal, yea, although I always thought they were saying liar (unsure). Not as ambient or slow as the TBU stuff but close.

 

[Rubycon]

Adham Shaikh
Angels Of Venice
Anugama
Arecibo
Between Interval
Beaver & Krause
Biosphere
Carl Weingarten
Chuck Wild
Cliff Martinez
Cryosleep
CyberZen
David Helpling
David Schombert
Deep Space Network
Der Spyra
Diane Arkenstone
Dreams Of Dying Stars
Erik Wollo
Escape Tank
Exit
Exos
Fanger and Schonwalder
Fuse
Global Communications
Hallucinogen
HIA
Ian Boddy
Ishq
John Huling
Jon Jenkins
Jonn Serrie
Juno Reactor
Kammarheit
Ka - Baalim and Cupid
Kit Watkins
Kraftwerk
Kurrel The Raven
Liquid Mind
Lisa Gerrard
Maps And Diagrams
Matt Borghi
Meg Bowles
Michael Stearns
Mind Over Matter
Monokit
Motionfield
Mystical Sun
Neon
Neotropic
Numina
Omicron
Oophoi
Open Canvas
Peter Namlook
Photophob
Plumb And Plumber
Polygon Windows
Primitive Earth
Prototype 909
Radiowave
Raison D`Etre
Restive
Richard Bone
Robert Rich
Roger Eno
Ryu
Sam Rosenthal
Samsa
Sattyananda
Seti
Solar Quest
Sonovo
Sounds From The Ground
Spacecraft
Spacedrifters
Spacetime Continuum
Speedy J
Squaremeter
Steve Roach
Syndromeda
Tangerine Dream
Terre Thaemlitz
The Alison Project
The Black Dog
Trickform
Vangelis
Vir Unis
Vladislav
Wendy Carlos
Xeonton